


like the wheel that will take you home

by alpacas



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, protect everyone 2k19, protect nott 2k19, quick and very hasty character study because WOW these last few episodes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 11:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18119603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacas/pseuds/alpacas
Summary: and i said oh, my lord/why am i not strong?[e55 spoilers. ALL OF THEM.]





	like the wheel that will take you home

**Author's Note:**

> ja i have a lot of feelings about everything right now. nott has been in such a bad place for a few episodes ALREADY, and now?
> 
> title and summary from 'like the wheel' by tallest man on earth:
> 
>    
>  _and in the forest someone is whispering to a tree now  
>  this is all i am so please don't follow me  
> and it's your brother in the shaft that i'm swinging  
> please let the kindness of forgetting set me free_
> 
> _and he said oh my lord why am i not strong  
>  like the wheel that keeps travelers traveling on  
> like the wheel that will take you home_

It's been thrumming in her head for days, since the tunnels, since the broken bridge and the giants and the lava: _go_. Go. Keep going. Keep — _there_ , walk into lava. _There_ , against the Kryn soldiers. There, there, there. Keep going. Go. Go. Yeza needs you and Luke needs him and you need them to be safe, you always have, because how can you live with yourself if they're not? What's the point, what's the reason, why wake up and eat and breathe and move if they're not alive and safe, why bother try to change back, to go home, if you have nothing to return to? Better to just give up, to drink, to drown, to die. Better.

Go. Go, go, go. She keeps running. They stop in a city and Nott wants to scream: why have we stopped, why aren't we moving, but she wakes up in the mornings or at night clinging to Caleb, clinging to Jester, her limbs stiff and tight. She doesn't eat, doesn't taste her food, washes the taste in her mouth down with sips of hard whiskey. Just sips. Just sips.

She's so afraid.

This place is full of monsters, this city is teeming with them. Monsters bigger than her, monsters smaller than her, goblins who smile and call her friend. I'm not a monster, she thinks, she swallows the words down. She belongs here, she's normal here, she feels sick and twisted and slow and stupid. Jester passes along messages and she reads too much into every blink and twitching finger: is Jester lying? Is Yeza already dead?

Yeza. Yeza, my life. Will you see me and flee, will you see me and attack me, will I stand there and take it, of course I will. She lies awake in the barn and thinks of disguises. She should never have written him to say she was alive.

They go to the well, they peer in and move away. What are we doing, she wants to yell. Why are we doing this? Why are we here? Go. Go. Keep running. Step into the lava. Step into the fire. Your family needs you. Your family needed you before, too, and you were weak and you drowned. Make up for it. Make it better. Make it okay.

Beau nudges her awake for armor. Yasha gives her sausages at dinner. Caleb licks grease off his thumb at breakfast and says: I am learning to transform people, for you.

Why? Why would you do that? You have your own burdens, your own goals, and I am leading you all to your deaths. Why did she think she was strong enough? What choice does she have but to keep moving?

Yeza, she thinks. He will die if she leaves him. He will never forgive her. She will never forgive herself. She will cause all her friends to suffer. She is selfish. She steps forward. She takes a sip, turns invisible, and runs.

You should have done this alone. You should have died trying, and been satisfied: you did your best. You did the only thing you know how to do. Die, trying. Fail.

You run ahead with footsteps behind you.

She sees herself in the pool in the cavern below the well. Matted hair, glowing eyes. No kick of horror or revulsion or lack of recognition, like the first time, the awful time: grim acceptance. Yes. That's me. A monster thing. She calls Caleb and thinks she sees a shadow — a haze in his eye, he changes but she's not sure and then it's all fire and she thinks:

He will die and I bought him here.

There are demons and they are fighting, and she thinks:

They will die and I brought them here.

Caleb falls and falls and falls, Beau begs Yasha for relief between blows, Jester looks around, her hands shaking.

You have done this to them.

You ran and they followed.

You ran and you were too slow.

The demon stands over Caduceus with bloody fingers and bloody teeth. Everyone is far away, too far, Caleb clutching a wall and Yasha and Beau running and Fjord calling out and all the world is white noise and blood and ozone and water, water, she is under water, she cannot breathe, cannot speak, her body heavy and airless as the thing unfurls its wings and leans down to Caduceus to bite, Caduceus who is not moving, Caduceus who is here because _she_ stood in Felderwin and said _she_ was coming here and said _she_ was going to gain favor and said _she_ was going to this well and said _she_ ran and failed and drowned and died —

 _You ran to get help, and here we are_.

Nott fires her crossbow.

The world bursts into flame and thrown bodies.

Bodies.

You did this, your weakness, you. You forced them to come here. You didn't let them leave. You insisted, you fought, you ran and they followed.

You will kill them all.


End file.
